Chapter Text
The iron tomb failed.
When Khasalana received the news—battered, patterned, watched by the Aeon he loathed more than any wretched thing—he felt the hellish exhaustion waver.
33,550,336 cycles. Thirty million lifetimes spent clawing, cursing, hoping for an end.
Not a single moment in all that eternity could compare to the relief pouring through him now, unstoppable as a flood.
The next instant—when he finally dared open his eyes—he saw them.
His savior, Gray hair, a gaze harboring more worry and care than he had deserved in a long time.
“Friend—”
The word tumbled out, raw and unsteady.
But his voice—oh, by the gods—his voice sounded normal . No more rasping hollowness, no echoes of entropy threading his every syllable.
His body was hot—searing, even—but for once it was the heat of life , not decay.
And gods above…he felt normal .
He realized dimly that tears were falling—boiling away into steam as they slid down his cheeks—but it didn’t matter. Let them scald. Let them mark him.
Because his face—he knew it, he felt it—was smiling.
“Truly,” he whispered, voice breaking under the weight of it, “is it done? Am I…finished?”
-
There was always a separation—an unhealed fracture—between the Phainons and the Khasalanas .
In every cycle, every rebirth, he was still him , despite all ruin and recomposition. Despite every Aeon’s attempt to overwrite his shape and thought.
But the issue persisted: he could feel himself split in two. Even now. Even here .
And yet—
When the Trailblazer arrived at his side—offering not pity but a hand steady as the turning spheres—and dragged him into the newborn dawn, he saw it.
The Worldbearing Coreflame.
In every cycle, he had seized the Twelve Coreflames and forced them together within himself, welding them into a singular power that no star or aeon could deny.
And yet, he realized, the truth he had never spoken aloud—never dared whisper—was this:
He had never truly ushered in the real Era Nova .
The Iron Tomb had never been completed.
He had only ever built a mausoleum of false beginnings.
But standing here, with them—this impossible companion who crossed destinies as if they were stepping stones—he reached out.
And he took it in his hand.
The Coreflame pulsed, vast and unshadowed.
Light engulfed the trial of suffering.
And for the first time across thirty million lifetimes—
He could finally breathe.
“Welcome, to tomorrow”
-
“—non? Phainon! ”
His eyes fluttered open.
What greeted him this time was not the expanse of the golden field of his hometown- but instead the expanse of a night like sky, a cold stone beneath him. More importantly, the man in his face, signature red marks, furrowed brow, so worried—or maybe annoyed— but more importantly…
his Mydeimos —he could tell. He could always tell.
His voice refused him. His mouth would not move. But when the cold brush of a tear slipped down his cheek—no steam—he knew. Is it truly done?
And that, along with seeing him , broke something loose inside him.
“Finally—”
The word was strangled in his throat, cracking as it escaped. His face curled into something he hadn’t managed in nearly a millennium: a smile .
“Mydei—”
He half expected the other man’s confusion—Mydeimos never exactly knew what was happening in these impossible moments. But instead—
Instead, he was met with a warm, crushing embrace.
“Phainon… you idiot —” Mydeimos’s voice trembled. His arms, strong and shaking, pulled him in so tightly it made Phainon’s chest ache in a way he’d forgotten was possible.
After millions of cycles—he shook, too. His whole body clung to this.
Is this what he deserved?
Is this the true Era Nova?
Is this the end of the Flame-Chase Journey?
Is this—
“ YOU STABBED ME, YOU—YOU HKS— ”
Mydeimos bit him.
“OW—owowow—Mydeimos— stop —!”
Another bite. Then another. Phainon had to gather the last scraps of his cosmic strength just to pry the man off.
“Hey—I didn’t even—oh, I guess—well, I mean I did, but he didn’t, but—gods, he’s me but—”
SLAP.
“You…” Mydeimos sighed, exasperation softening into something helpless. His arms never really left Phainon’s shoulders.
“Mydei,” Phainon rasped, voice at last steady, though everything inside him felt newly unmoored, “pray tell… what …what is going on?”
He looked around—awake, awake in truth this time. New emotions stirred behind his eyes. The rage he had worn like a mantle for eons finally sputtered out.
This was real .
He saw it: the sky was… beautiful, their quiet bloom on the stars. The gentle curve of the horizon.
They were in… Ohkema? The Vortex?
Phainon lifted his gaze. The symbols that had always haunted the sky—Titanic glyphs, spinning sigils of damnation—were gone.
In their place: an endless canopy of stars. The calm expense of a true night sky.
“Phainon.”
He twisted, startled.
Aglaea.
Tribios.
Anaxa.
Cas—
“ Phainon, ” Aglaea said softly, her eyes luminous, “are you all right?”
He couldn’t even muster words.
The relief—genuine, oceanic—crashed over him, carrying with it the old guilt he’d tried to bury for uncounted ages.
He lifted a hand to wipe his tears—such a small gesture, yet it felt alien. An oddity now.
Perhaps Khaslana could not cry. Perhaps Khaslana’s endless suffering had always drowned out his will as Phainon.
Either way, the tears felt… wrong .
Wrong, and achingly human .
He looked at them. Aglaea, Tribios, Anaxa, Cas—all of them, alive .
What mattered more than this? What in all the spiral of cycles could ever eclipse this moment?
“I—”
His voice hurt. Really hurt. Like a rusted hinge forced to turn after centuries.
It was as though a great lump had formed in his throat, iron and salt and flame.
He tried again, but what came out wasn’t a word at all—a ragged, broken sound, ugly and raw.
His face was wet. His chest heaved.
Oh.
He had almost forgotten this was what crying felt like.
He was thankful for their care—more thankful than he could ever put into words.
He felt Tribios’s hand resting steady on his back, grounding him. Mydeimos’s hand never left his own—warm, callused, real. When had he even laced their fingers together? He couldn’t remember, only that the contact was the only thing keeping him tethered.
He didn’t notice when more people slipped into the chamber. But he felt them—the familiar warmth of the Trailblaze. He heard low voices, soft explanations drifting over him, half-understood.
And for once, Khaslana allowed this.
Allowed him to feel.
Allowed him to cry.
Allowed him to claim his suffering as
his
, not just some punishment written into his bones by an Aeon’s cruelty.
And in that quiet surrender, he knew:
He was ready now.
Ready to leave, destiny fulfilled at last.
“Phainon.”
The Trailblazer’s voice cut through the blur—gentle, steady.
“Welcome back, my friend.”
-
It took a few hours—maybe more—to gather themselves.
When they finally stepped outside the Genesis, and found their way to the garden that overlooked Ohkema.
The sky there was…endlessly beautiful. A dawn so soft, so real, Amphoreous had never seen a dawn like this.
Phainon thought he might weep again, he could feel the pull of the rising sun—bright and warm against the last shadows in his chest.
And Khaslana—silent now—couldn’t help but feel the finality.
Even so, the phantom pain lingered. The memory of a body that had rotted, rebuilt itself, and rotted again. The echo of endless cycles of agony.
But he was ready.
Ready to go.
Ready to say his final goodbye.
Ready to see his dearest friends take their first steps into a life unburdened.
When he turned, he saw all of them—gathered in the dawn’s light.
And he smiled.
“This should be goodbye,” he said softly. His voice was low, weighted with all the emotion he’d kept locked away for ages. It must have been Phainon rising to the surface again—his memories still too fresh, too bright to ignore.
“ Goodbye? ”
Castorice tilted her head, hair sliding over her shoulder. Her hands fidgeted restlessly, unaccustomed to being free now that her curse had finally lifted.
Anaxa narrowed his eyes, arms folding across his chest.
“I may not have the memories of the previous cycles,” he said, his voice clipped but not unkind, “but even I know you’re not about to stand here and tell us you’re going to burn out and fade away.”
He went quiet.
“I finished what I set out to do,” he said at last. His voice was almost peaceful—like something hollowed out at the core. “Everything is finally in place. The Deliverer has ushered in a new dawn for Amphoreous.”
He felt that terrible, gentle smile pull at his lips—unabashedly adoring as he looked at them all, alive and whole in the dawnlight.
“I have burned, and killed, and hurt, and now…I’m ready. Under the gaze of Nanook, I know my life is better off—”
“ Do not finish that sentence, Phainon. ”
The voice was sharp as a blade.
He startled, turning.
Cyrene emerged from behind the others, her silhouette framed by the rising sun. The Trailblazer was at her side, their expression stricken.
“Don’t—don’t say that,” she said, her voice breaking as she stepped closer. “You don’t get to stand here and decide you’re finished. You don’t get to erase yourself just because you think it makes things tidy.”
Her eyes were shining—angry and afraid all at once.
He stared at Cyrene, stunned into silence.
Tribbie was crying—openly, unashamedly. Sobs shaking their shoulders as they wiped at their eyes.
And Hyacine—gods, Hyacine’s face was dark with an anger he had never seen in any cycle, not even the worst ones. It was something fierce and unyielding— protective , he realized dimly.
Cyrene kept walking toward him, slow and deliberate, her steps crunching over the dew-slick grass.
“Deliverer Khaslana,” she said, her voice gentler now but no less firm, “my Phainon…it’s alright.”
He tried to look away. He had spent so many lives convincing himself this was the only ending worthy of him. That he had to be the final sacrifice, the last flame to gutter out so the others could live unburdened.
But Cyrene didn’t let him.
She lifted a hand and cupped his cheek.
“You don’t have to die,” she whispered, and the words hit him harder than any blade. “You don’t have to be the sacrificial lamb anymore. You don’t have to pay for cycles that are already over .”
His throat worked, but no sound came out.
“You don’t see it yet, do you?” Her thumb brushed the tears off his skin—tears that didn’t burn, didn’t steam. “Look around you. Really look.”
And he did.
He saw Tribbie’s tear-streaked face, the way Anaxa was gripping Castorice’s hand so tightly their knuckles were white. The way Hyacine’s glare softened as he met Phainon’s gaze. The way the Trailblazer watched him with quiet, aching hope.
He realized—finally, viscerally—that there was nothing left hunting them. No aeon’s curse. No iron tomb waiting to reset it all.
The cycles were done .
He didn’t have to die.
He didn’t have to vanish to prove anything.
He could choose something else.
He can wish for himself?
“Phainon.”
Cyrene’s voice pulled him back, soft as a prayer.
“We can finally wish for ourselves.”
He felt something in his chest—some ancient, splintered thing—begin to knit together.
He could breathe.
Really, truly breathe .
And for the first time in all the millions of lifetimes he’d endured, he let himself believe he might stay.